Bellini’s rural Swiss idyll opera is
brimful with wonderful melodies and
virtuoso cantilena, requiring true bel
canto artists. On the other hand there
is very little harmonic development,
the orchestra is there to provide the
accompaniment and really dramatic music
is practically absent. There is an almost
somnambulistic atmosphere surrounding
the whole work and here the director
Federico Tiezzi has cleverly presented
the opera as taking place in a dream,
Amina’s dream. The fanciful sets also
makes one think of children’s picture-books.
When this production
was first seen at the Teatro Comunale
in Florence in December 2000 it was
controversial, I read in Kenneth Chalmers
essay in the booklet. Traditionalists
may feel short-changed by the fairy-tale
approach, but, although I can be disheartened
by some directors’ stubborn search for
originality, placing the action in any
period except the one the composer intended,
I found this an uplifting and wholly
engrossing experience. This is helped
by razor-sharp pictures and sound to
match and no less than 40 cuing-points
for those who want to pick and choose.
The video direction by Paola Longobardo
gives us enough of the stage-picture
to feel present at the Teatro Comunale,
but she also works a lot with close-ups.
It should also be mentioned that there
are some cuts: apart from some minor
excisions within numbers, Lisa’s second-act
aria and the subsequent quartet are
missing, which puts the focus even more
on the heroine. The time is the end
of the 19th century and whether
it plays in Switzerland is hard to tell
but the first act takes place on a very
steep and very green hill on top of
which is a house-façade with
many windows and a centrally placed
door through which the different characters
make their entrance into the picture-book
world. Behind is a very blue sky – and
I mean very blue. The chorus
functions as a collective, reacting
to things that happen. Sometimes intensified
by the lighting they act ominously and
dramatically where there is no corresponding
drama in the music. The second scene
of the first act, taking place in Count
Rodolfo’s room at the inn, has an enormous
and very red sofa as its centre-piece,
a sofa on which Amina in her first sleepwalking
scene lies down. "Freudian resonances",
Kenneth Chalmers writes in his essay.
The second act sleepwalking scene takes
place on the collapsing metal bridge
over an icy landscape, which can be
seen on the box-cover above.
Daniel Oren obviously
loves every bar of this score and sometimes
becomes almost dangerously slow in his
attempts to expose the beauty of the
music. This further enhances the dreamlike
feeling. With three principals who are
just as involved he manages to bring
it off successfully.
The acting is on the
whole excellent. The members of the
chorus have a lot of individual acting
to do within the collective. Giacomo
Prestia, an older-looking Count than
most, is an imposing presence whenever
he is on stage. He starts a bit unsteadily
but sings his cavatina Vi ravviso,
o luoghi ameni" with dignity
and a fine legato. As Elvino the Catalan
tenor José Bros is light-voiced
and flexible and sings with true Bellinian
style. I heard him as Nemorino in L’Elisir
d’amore at Covent Garden some years
ago and I his way with Una furtiva
lagrima was closer to the ideal
than most tenors I have heard. His singing
here of Prendi: l’anel ti dono
(track 11) is one of the jewels of the
performance. As an actor he can be a
bit stiff – but the singing! But of
course it is La Sonnambula herself,
Amina, who carries the performance and
Eva Mei has made this role very much
her own in Italy. There is today – well
the recording was made all but two years
ago – a suspicion of a beat in her voice
on some held notes, but otherwise she
delivers the same spotless singing we
have come to expect. And she cuts an
endearing character on stage with a
radiant smile, something that Paola
Longobardo catches in close-ups every
so often.
Gemma Bertagnolli is
a good Lisa but due to the aforementioned
cuts her role is more or less marginalized.
For the singing of
the principals, for Oren’s loving treatment
of the score and for the fanciful production
this set can be safely recommended.
In my family it will be played again
pretty soon, I promise!
Göran Forsling
Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino/Daniel
Oren 
TDK
DVD DVWWOPSON [138 mins] 
